This topic may raise a lot of controversy especially in this day and age when people have to be politically correct so to speak. I know that the ratio of Men to women in amateur radio is like 9 to 1. the number of Yl's active on HF is also far less than on VHF-UHF. I wonder why is this the case,

Generally speaking women are much more verbal than men. if we look on TV especially there are far more women talk show hosts than men. i don't think the same maybe true on commercial radio.

If women are more vebal than men why is the ratio of women to men in amateur radio very disproportionate to the ratio of women and men in society.Is it because amateur radio is considered a macho thing? Is it considred unfeminine like many other things in life.

Maybe the exam turns women off. But today in the USA there are more women college graduates than men by about 57 percent to 43 percent. Half of all Medical and Law school graduates in the USA are women and more than a third of all graduate business school graduates are women.

Yet women still lag far behind in graduating from engineering and technical schools . The ratio in the USA is about 75 percent to 25 percent. A great majority of the tech innovators are men such as the founders of Apple, Google, Microsoft and Face Book.

Is it because women are more nurturing then men and have children that also affects the reason why far fewer of them have amateur radio licenses?

I know a few YL's who got their licenses to please their boy friends or husbands. However many of them after an initial phase let their licenses lapse or never go on the air anymore.

Isthis because their brains are different.Yet they like to chat much more than men.Why not on amateur radio or the men will not stand for that (HI)? There have been a number of books written on the topic of the differences between men and women over the years such as Men are from Mars and Women are from Venus?

Also has anyone ever noticed that 95 percent of all comments on eham.net and all the other ham radio sites are from men.

Some years ago a double-blind academic study theorized that males and females processed certain tasks differently and valued different types of competition. The researchers gathered a random sample of young people and had them play two different types of video games. One was an individualistic goal-oriented game. Another was a game in which multiplayer collaboration was more important than individual competition. The study found that men tended to prefer the game that rewarded individual competition. Women gravitated towards the game that valued collaboration over competition.

Granted, this does not hold true for plenty of people. I'm not attracted to the competitive aspects of ham radio, such as contesting and paper chasing. There are YL's who enjoy contesting. However, I suspect that the ham radio focus on DXing and contesting can be alienating to certain women. Both pursuits are often highly individualistic and provide little in the way of team competition. Even multi-op and DXpeditions often focus on the individual achievements of participants.

YL multi-op might be a good way to introduce women to contesting. Still, I can see how some women might be alienated by ham radio's individualistic, even self-aggrandizing culture.

Some years ago a double-blind academic study theorized that males and females processed certain tasks differently and valued different types of competition. The researchers gathered a random sample of young people and had them play two different types of video games. One was an individualistic goal-oriented game. Another was a game in which multiplayer collaboration was more important than individual competition. The study found that men tended to prefer the game that rewarded individual competition. Women gravitated towards the game that valued collaboration over competition.

Granted, this does not hold true for plenty of people. I'm not attracted to the competitive aspects of ham radio, such as contesting and paper chasing. There are YL's who enjoy contesting. However, I suspect that the ham radio focus on DXing and contesting can be alienating to certain women. Both pursuits are often highly individualistic and provide little in the way of team competition. Even multi-op and DXpeditions often focus on the individual achievements of participants.

I agree with Jordan. I enjoy the technical, geeky aspects of amateur radio and in trying out different modes of operation. It does put me off when I get chewed out for not being all that excited about logging a contact for someone who just wants to click off a check-box on a contest form. Many do not want to talk and only want to do a hit and run QSO. That is not very rewarding and I cannot say that I have ever become personal friends with anyone I have QSO'ed with.

To put it in an IT perspective, it is like getting all excited because you can PING an IP address. I want to put the time into learning about people. Where they live, what they do, what is life like in (fill in the blank). To me, the content is more important than the contact and I could spend a half hour in a real conversation with someone. I learned to stay off of the HF nets (expecially on 75/80) and will find a quiet spot in the band to call out a CQ. I know that there are other hams who are doing the same thing, sweeping back and forth the dial, listening for a callout. They are usually nice people to talk to. Sometimes I catch someone who barks back about me being on their "net channel" when I ask if a frequency is in use. Sometimes I will hang out there to listen for any sort of discussion or net activity, usually there is none, just some jerk in his basement who camps his radio on one specific frequency for that 20 minute period once a week when there actually is a net. A spin of the dial just coasts me over to another spot.

I do not know if any of this means anything to males. Maybe I have only added to your confusion as to why some of us have different motivations for being amateur radio operators.

I do not know if any of this means anything to males. Maybe I have only added to your confusion as to why some of us have different motivations for being amateur radio operators.

I agree with you Tisha. When I first got my license I tried phone for one year. I got my first license at 13, so I wasn't taken very seriously by most hams on the air. One of the reasons why I switched to CW was because no one can tell age or gender on CW. Everybody sounds the same. I've never gone back to phone. From what I hear on the nets sometimes, I'm glad I have no real interest in the mode.

I also prefer to "ragchew", and have no real interest in contesting or DXing. Like you, I find those contacts somewhat empty of meaning in themselves. Also, I'm a bit saddened that for some but not all hams reputation is based on how many awards one can accumulate. I'd rather meet people both on the air and at hamfests, etc, than earn an award but not know anybody I've contacted along the way.

I respect those hams who are into competitive sides of the hobby like contesting and DXing. If that's your niche in the hobby, go for it. However, people who are casual operators or are more interested in ham radio as an art are also part of the hobby. It's important to respect both perspectives. However, no ham should feel intimidated even when asking if a frequency is in use. Maybe more persons (male and female) would be interested in becoming hams if the airwaves were a bit more friendly (and perhaps with some nicer conversation!)

Of course different people have different kinds of brains. Heck the same person has essentially a different brain over time - anybody who has been around teenagers knows that.

I don't think it's possible to separate out the various reasons for the wide numerical differences in male vs. female hams. It's not about "political correctness" but rather about trying to eliminate unnecessary barriers that have been in place for a very long time.

For just one example, when I was in high school in the 1970s, there were lots of single-gender high schools in my area - often right next door to each other. A few survive to this day. It was common in those schools for the boys' HS to offer AP calculus, AP physics, AP chemistry and the preparatory courses to support them. The girls' HS next door had none of those courses - but they did have AP foreign languages and AP biology, and lots of courses designed to prepare girls to be teachers and nurses - none of which the boys' HS had.

Sure, some girls and boys managed to overcome the barriers and stereotypes. But a lot didn't even try, because it never occurred to them to.

Sure, some girls and boys managed to overcome the barriers and stereotypes. But a lot didn't even try, because it never occurred to them to.

It takes a long time for the effects of such things to go away.

As you have often said Jim, children and teens don't know that certain tasks are "hard". No one told me that "code is hard". I just learned it.

Girls and women are told over and over again that math and the sciences are not for them. If girls weren't told that "math is hard", many more would be interested in an engineering or sciences degree. Heck, Angela Merkel and Margaret Thatcher both have PhDs in Chemistry. Maybe no one told them "math is hard".

This is true. Ultimately, those who succeed in engineering and the sciences do so ideally because of merit and talent. A young woman who wants to be an engineer or scientist has plenty of scholarship opportunities. I teach a humanities course in the University's engineering department. The bulletin boards are full of award competitions for women in engineering and the sciences. A smart young woman with determination could probably get the BSEE and MSEE all on someone else's dime.

From casual estimation I would say that there are nowadays more women in engineering, math, and the sciences. Men still predominate, but the balance is shifting.

Girls not being equally represented in math and physical science seems to be more of a US thing than a western nations thing. I am under the impression that in Europe the numbers of male/female math/science college graduates are nearly equal. I wonder if that means that there are more European women hams, percentage-wise, than their American counterparts? I don't know where to go to find that data.

There are probably many societal reasons that could also account for the lower number of women. There are cultures in which the men do not allow women to learn anything remotely technical. There are pressures on women to put the family and the needs of the family first, sometimes leaving no time for the radio or no money for the radio hobby. (There are probably more US male golfers than female golfers for the same reason.) There is the fact that radio clubs and ham radio stores seem to mostly be run by older gentlemen, and most women just don't want to hang out with older men.

I like being a woman on hf ssb. I only make a couple of contacts a week (I also have a job, a family, a house, and other hobbies). But I've found that most men are truly happy to talk to a woman on the air. Even many of those guys running quicky 59, QRZ-type QSOs will stop and ask my name or chat a bit, all because I'm a woman. I think that is pretty cool.

Alan: I sincerely mean no offense but apparently you're not married or you wouldn't have asked such a stupid question!

If you've done any reading in the various forums here on eHam you will notice that most women don't want their husbands fooling around with ham radio and especially putting up antennas in the back yard...... let alone becoming a ham!

There must be hobbies where the participants are predominantly female. Does anyone ask why so few men participate in those? If you were to ask a man why he does not participate, he'd probably say it's just not interesting. I expect it's the same for women & "men's hobbies".

I am not a ham, but I used to be a member of a MW DX club, and during one of the meetings this subject came up, although it pertained to MW DXing and radio hobbies in general. There was a woman there who was either a member, or someone's wife (can't remember, it was over 20 years ago).

She said she thought that women were underrepresented in the radio listening hobby because they generally have better hearing than men, and DXing and radio communication noises are more irritating to their ears, than they are to men's ears.

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